Funny money?

[mgk920]

I am a coin collector so I could point to a lot of strange examples in my possession. Some of the more notable finds in circulation:
A mint condition 1969 dollar bill
A 1970 S dime from a proof set (in the corner of a dept. store)
A 1970 S quarter from a proof set (in change)
I forget the year, but I have a D over S double strike penny (not at all sure how that happened)
One wartime silver nickel (duplicated my already completed set)

I've never found any of the prior issues of coins in circulation except for dollars, where Anthonys would still turn up with Sacs for several years. I imagine you can't find Ikes anymore because dollar rolls have probably all adapted to the smaller size.

I've gotten several such 'impaired-proof' coins from circulation over the years, too.  They ranged in condition from uncirculated, looking like someone had just cracked them out of their sets that morning, to coins that had been out and about for a while and showing significant wear.  Their mirror-like backgrounds really stand out in the eyes of someone who knows what various varieties of coins generally look like from arms' length.

I've also gotten about 10-15 WWII-era silver nickels from circulation over the years and a 1943-S 1¢ a few months ago.  The latter is a bit ironic in that the feds are now seriously looking into using steel as a major coining material in order to cut production costs, like Canada did a couple of years ago.  Canada also stopped making their 1¢ coins this past spring.

According to http://www.coinflation.com , as of this typing the metal in nickels is worth 102.72% of 'face' value, 'Zincoln' 1¢ coins are 53.82% of face, $1 coins are running 6.17% of face (SBAs are at 7.08% of face) and the metal in dimes, quarters and half dollars is at 19.84% of face value.  These figures, of course, do not include any other production costs such as labor, equipment depreciation, transportation, utilities and so forth.

Mike

[oscar]

How about that whole group of people that are convinced that 50¢ coins are collectible?  Wouldn't some of those people be willing to pay more than face value for such a coin?  Or are you now going to assert that every last one of these people builds their collections entirely from coins they find in circulation?

Since I, and anyone, can obtain an unlimited amount of 50c pieces at exactly 50c per at any bank, they would be extremely stupid people. 

Well, condition matters.  Collectors seek and save the coins in most pristine condition, with no wear and few or no "bag marks" (little nicks from coins banging into each other).  It's hard to get that quality from coins in circulation, though considering how little circulation most 50-cents pieces go through, ordering a roll from a bank might get you pretty close.

I'm not sure how the collectors will get a return on their investment, considering it appears that non-silver Kennedy half dollars generally "do not command a numismatic premium"  But maybe they'll get lucky someday.

I still look for silver coins in circulation, but it's been a dozen years since I've found one.  Sometime in the 1990s, I bought a roll of quarters for laundry money (the roll was assembled by one of the bank's other customers), and half of the quarters were silver.  Almost nobody makes that kind of mistake.

[oscar]

According to http://www.coinflation.com , as of this typing the metal in nickels is worth 102.72% of 'face' value, 'Zincoln' 1¢ coins are 53.82% of face, $1 coins are running 6.17% of face (SBAs are at 7.08% of face) and the metal in dimes, quarters and half dollars is at 19.84% of face value. 

The same site notes that the metal in mostly-copper 1¢ U.S. coins (up to 1981 except the 1943 steel pennies, as well as some 1982 pennies) is worth about 2.4x face value.  I've saved about four pounds of those pennies, plus some of the mostly-copper Canadian pennies (1996 and earlier).  Mostly-copper Canadian pennies will be easier to find up there than mostly-copper U.S. pennies are down here, until Canadian pennies of whatever kind gradually disappear from circulation, now that no new ones are being produced and the government is encouraging shopkeepers to round to the nearest nickel. 

[english si]

Notes are a different story.  In England and Wales, notes are issued by the Bank of England, which is the government the same way the US Federal Reserve is.  But the rest of the country is totally weird.  The BoE will issue a not really for circulating BoE note for many millons of pounds to one of three (for Scotland) or four (for Northern Ireland) private banks, or to the governments of its remaining pound using territories (Jersey, Gurnsey, Man, Gibralter, Falkland Islands, St. Helena) who then have the right to issue notes up to that value, which are totally different from one another and from BoE notes.  in Scotland and Northern Ireland, all will circulate together.  So you might get change in a mix of five totally different designed currencies.

Given banknotes are not actual money, it's not that odd. Basically Pound Sterling banknotes are cheques, made payable to 'bearer' the sum of x. This is different from US treasury bills - which are actual money.

In England and Wales (the other two kingdoms and the three Crown Dependencies have entirely separate legal systems), the BoE has a monopoly created by law (other English banks used to issue banknotes but they put a stop to that as it was literally a licence to print money!). Outside Scotland and Northern Ireland the Government directly prints it. Territories don't use pounds sterling, but currencies tied to pound sterling.

In Scotland and Northern Ireland, no notes are legal tender*, though BoE notes (well, £5, £10, £20 and £50 are) are legal tender in the Kingdom of England and Wales. You'll find that the further south you go the less likely that Scottish notes will get treated without some suspicion (Northern Irish ones, etc are quite difficult to get accepted as legit money in Britain). This is due to their rarity and therefore there's doubts about authenticity as people haven't seen real ones to know if what you have is a forgery. They don't have to accept them, though (hard law in Scotland, case law elsewhere) payment in non-BoE-issued sterling notes would be considered a legit attempt to pay, unless it was stated in a contract or something that they will only accept what they have to (same applies if you try and pay with lots and lots of small change).

And the BoE only issue £1million and £100million notes to these ones that can print banknotes still - they are the bank's guarantee that they can pay the bearer such a sum as described on the note. Technically, if I wanted to, I could buy/start a bank in Scotland/N Ireland and legally print banknotes - but without the backing they won't be accepted anywhere - because they are simply IOUs with nothing to back up the promise.

*in other words, unlike coins (though with limits on the number of smaller-denomination coins - 50p and 20p coins are only legal tender up to £10, 10p and 5p up to £5 and 2p and 1p up to 20p), they do not have to be accepted as payment of debt.

[vdeane]

How about that whole group of people that are convinced that 50¢ coins are collectible?  Wouldn't some of those people be willing to pay more than face value for such a coin?  Or are you now going to assert that every last one of these people builds their collections entirely from coins they find in circulation?

Since I, and anyone, can obtain an unlimited amount of 50c pieces at exactly 50c per at any bank, they would be extremely stupid people.  One might as well say that because a few dolts think McDonald's Big Macs are "collectable" it makes it so.  The are, rather, worth whatever you local McDonald's sells them for.

It's not really stupid, given that I have never even seen a 50 cent coin in my entire life.  How many people request specific bills/coins at the bank?  I'm guessing that most people these days only need to go to the bank to deposit cash and checks and to exchange cash for overseas trips.

[english si]

Since I, and anyone, can obtain an unlimited amount of 50c pieces at exactly 50c per at any bank, they would be extremely stupid people.

With 50c coins, it is somewhat silly because of the lack of changes to the design (you might pay slightly more for specific years where few were minted, etc) - though the rarity means that they are somewhat collectable. Quarters, however, are different, given the different designs. I imagine that a complete collection of state/territory quarters would be worth more than the cash value of the coins themselves - despite a great many collectors and a great many coins.

Other coin things are rarer still. A friend of mine, when the new reverse design for UK coinage (the shield-based one) came out in fairly late 2008, he spend something like £15 for an official royal mint collection in a sort of display plastic wallet  - the coins are worth 100 + 50 + 20 + 10 + 5 + 2 +1p (£1.88), though due to their rarer vintage, you might sell all of them individually for a total of little over £2. The wallet might be worth £1 on it's own (it is limited edition with a print run of 10000 or something), but the sum of the parts is rightly worth 5 times that - the resale value would be about that currently, but as time goes on the set will be worth more - especially after the design is retired - harder to get hands on 2008 coins as they fall out of circulation and so on.

The Royal Mint also mint collectors 50p - the reverse's design commemorates certain things (like stamps) with limited runs. They even have TV ads for their special limited edition £5 coins each time one comes out. Before 2008 and the re-design, the design on the pound did a series of 5 year cycles (Royal Standard and one for each of the four nations. 2 consecutive cycles had identical designs) with a different back and motto on the side - a full set of them from 1983 to 2008 would be worth quite a bit more than the £25 sum of the parts (depending on the condition of the coin - you can no doubt buy a set that someone made with mint-fresh coins lovingly kept in that condition). I could see a well kept set, displayed well, to go for at least £50 even now, just about 4 years after the last coin was minted.

[Duke87]

It's not really stupid, given that I have never even seen a 50 cent coin in my entire life.

I have a couple lying around somewhere (of the Kennedy variety). I think my father found them in a shoebox at my grandmother's house or something... at any rate, they were pulled out of circulation 40 years ago. I didn't know you could still go to the bank and ask for them.

But practically speaking, no vending machine will take them, and I betcha a lot of merchants would look at you funny if you tried to pay with them, so I don't know how "spendable" they really would be. I see them more as a curiosity than something of actual value. Kinda like how I bothered to collect all 50 state quarters.

Actually, stuff like that is a clever play on the mint's part: when people pull money out of circulation, they counteract inflation by effectively making money disappear - so the government can print more to cover the national deficit.

[Special K]

There is a whole group of people that are convinced that 50c pieces are somehow "collectable".  Untrue.  They have no value over their value as money...

Untrue.  The value is whatever someone is willing to pay for it.

Umm, OK?  There are no people willing to pay more than the monetary value of any modern US 50c coin.  So they have no collectable value and are unlikely to ever have one.  They are worth exactly 50 cents.

No people, huh?  Have you never heard of rubes?

[oscar]

Since I, and anyone, can obtain an unlimited amount of 50c pieces at exactly 50c per at any bank, they would be extremely stupid people.  One might as well say that because a few dolts think McDonald's Big Macs are "collectable" it makes it so.  The are, rather, worth whatever you local McDonald's sells them for.

It's not really stupid, given that I have never even seen a 50 cent coin in my entire life.  How many people request specific bills/coins at the bank?  I'm guessing that most people these days only need to go to the bank to deposit cash and checks and to exchange cash for overseas trips.

The U.S. Mint hasn't been producing Kennedy 50-cent pieces for general circulation for more than a decade.  If you get any in change, or from a bank, dated 2002 or later, it was from someone stupidly breaking up a proof or uncirculated set sold at a premium to collectors.

Betcha most banks would have to do some scrounging around to sell you a roll of non-sliver (1971-2001) general-circulation Kennedy halves.

[huskeroadgeek]

I still look for silver coins in circulation, but it's been a dozen years since I've found one.  Sometime in the 1990s, I bought a roll of quarters for laundry money (the roll was assembled by one of the bank's other customers), and half of the quarters were silver.  Almost nobody makes that kind of mistake.

I don't believe I have ever seen a silver quarter in actual circulation. I remember when I was younger I noticed that there was an unusually high number of quarters from 1965 in circulation and I wondered why. It wasn't until years later that I learned that was the first year they were made of the copper-nickel alloy instead of silver, and the mint flooded the market with the new quarters because the silver quarters would quickly disappear from circulation because of their intrinsic value.

[huskeroadgeek]

Or really, money that you haven't seen in forever.

Went to the bank, and got $50 out - 20 $2 bills, mixed dollar coins, and a few 50-cent pieces. I like the old 50-cent pieces, and can remember seeing the old Frankin half dollar pieces as a kid. Thoughts on strange money?

Or really, money that you haven't seen in forever.

Went to the bank, and got $50 out - 20 $2 bills, mixed dollar coins, and a few 50-cent pieces. I like the old 50-cent pieces, and can remember seeing the old Frankin half dollar pieces as a kid. Thoughts on strange money?

When I was in high school, at the end of the year when you turned in the lock from your locker, you got back $2.50 of a $3.00 deposit you made at the beginning of the year. Presumably in order to make things as quick as possible with the number of people returning locks at the same time, you received your $2.50 in a $2 bill and a half dollar. I just carried the $2 bill in my wallet and half dollar in my pocket, intending to use it just for regular payment sometime, knowing that there wasn't anything unusual about them. So one time not too much later when I went to a movie, I used the $2 bill and half dollar as part of my payment. The girl taking my money got wide-eyed and exclaimed "Cool! I've never seen these before!" and after taking the money proceeded to pull out 2 $1 bills and two quarters out of her pocket in exchange for the $2 bill and half dollar so she could take them herself. I still receive $2 bills and/or half dollars occasionally as change and never hesitate to use them again myself, yet there still seems to be a certain amount of amazement anytime I use them.

Probably even rarer than $2 bills and half dollars are $50 bills. It's common to see $20 and $100 bills for large cash purchases, but you don't very often see $50 bills. I have seen them, but I don't think I have ever used one.

[algorerhythms]

There is a whole group of people that are convinced that 50c pieces are somehow "collectable".  Untrue.  They have no value over their value as money...

Untrue.  The value is whatever someone is willing to pay for it.

Umm, OK?  There are no people willing to pay more than the monetary value of any modern US 50c coin.  So they have no collectable value and are unlikely to ever have one.  They are worth exactly 50 cents.

How about that whole group of people that are convinced that 50¢ coins are collectible?  Wouldn't some of those people be willing to pay more than face value for such a coin?  Or are you now going to assert that every last one of these people builds their collections entirely from coins they find in circulation?

I get people all the time exclaiming how rare/valuable the $2 bills I spend are. Funnily enough, I can never sell them one for $4.

I don't know, I've seen TV commercials advertising "illuminated" (vandalized) $2 bills for $10, so they must be finding some suckers somewhere.

[oscar]

Probably even rarer than $2 bills and half dollars are $50 bills. It's common to see $20 and $100 bills for large cash purchases, but you don't very often see $50 bills. I have seen them, but I don't think I have ever used one.

I use $50 bills often on long road trips, especially when I'm going to out-of-the-way places where you can't count on people taking credit cards.  Even the newer $50s, with more anti-counterfeiting safeguards, are not universally accepted by shopkeepers but still are much more often accepted than $100s.  If the Bureau of Engraving can fix its problems with the new $100 bills, that might mean greater acceptance of $100s and I might start using them more, to help carry more money in less wallet space.

Some Canadian ATMs routinely dispense $50 bills.  It helps that the Canadians are ahead of us on anti-counterfeiting measures, as in many other things on coinage and currency.  But some shopkeepers in Canada will balk at $50 bills, anyway.

[Alps]

Probably even rarer than $2 bills and half dollars are $50 bills. It's common to see $20 and $100 bills for large cash purchases, but you don't very often see $50 bills. I have seen them, but I don't think I have ever used one.

Doubt that. The bank defaults to 50s when I cash a check, whereas you have to ask specially to get $2 bills and half dollars. That says to me they have plenty of 50s in stock, but not the other stuff. Considering I don't deal in large bills except to cash those 50s, I have no idea whether I'd ever see a 50 from someone else, but I know I've _never_ gotten a 2 or half dollar in change.

[Duke87]

The only times I have ever found myself handling a $50 or $100 bill is if someone gave one to me as a gift or had me make change for it. Generally ATMs only have $10s and $20s and I'm not about to go waste time talking to the teller just to get cash in other denominations since there is no benefit to it. Besides, I find those larger bills annoyingly not useful, since I don't usually make purchases of that magnitude with cash. If $20 were the largest bill printed, I would have no problem with that.

And yeah, the coin-bill breakup in this country is stupid. We really need to ditch the $1 and $2 bills and replace them with coins. And we really need to get rid of pennies. Hell, might as well get rid of nickels and dimes, too, they're pretty much equally useless and worthless.

[1995hoo]

I've used ATMs at Citibank locations in downtown DC that dispense $50s if you withdraw more than $300. I find that pretty convenient. I seldom carry that much cash, but when I do I prefer the smaller stack afforded by the $50s.

The only place I know of that gives $2s as change is Monticello, Thomas Jefferson's house located near Charlottesville, VA. Since Jefferson appears on the $2, Monticello has usually (though at the present time this isn't the case) made sure the admission fee is an amount that most people will pay with bills equalling $2 more than the fee, and with your ticket you receive a $2 bill as change. (Currently the regular adult admission is $24. But since most people don't come alone, the $2 bill thing still works if you come with a friend and give them $50 for two tickets.)

I have a 1982 MacPuffin Dollar from Cape Breton Island (it has the Canso Causeway on the back and was worth $1 on the island until October 15 of that year) and a Newfoundland Dollar from that same year (has a picture of a train called the "Newfie Bullet").

Until 1949, Newfoundland was independent of Canada, and had its own official currency and coinage.  I have a few samples (bought from a coin dealer, not in circulation).

Yeah, the coin I have is a "local currency" souvenir thing from Corner Brook, much like the MacPuffin Dollar but not as cool-looking.

[Alps]

(Currently the regular adult admission is $24. But since most people don't come alone, the $2 bill thing still works if you come with a friend and give them $50 for two tickets.)

OT: Is that the highest price for any house tour in the nation?

[Scott5114]

(Currently the regular adult admission is $24. But since most people don't come alone, the $2 bill thing still works if you come with a friend and give them $50 for two tickets.)

OT: Is that the highest price for any house tour in the nation?

I'll charge a fee of $100,000 to tour my house

[corco]

The girl taking my money got wide-eyed and exclaimed "Cool! I've never seen these before!" and after taking the money proceeded to pull out 2 $1 bills and two quarters out of her pocket in exchange for the $2 bill and half dollar so she could take them herself. I still receive $2 bills and/or half dollars occasionally as change and never hesitate to use them again myself, yet there still seems to be a certain amount of amazement anytime I use them.

This reminds me of the time I went to Walmart in Laramie, Wyoming and made an $8 purchase with four twos. The girl at the register looked at them a bit perplexed and then used the counterfeit pen on every single one of them.

[rickmastfan67]

I personally just scored a 1964 Silver Dime the other day in change.

[mcdonaat]

I picked up a strap of $2 bills when I cashed my paycheck, and am going to use them in everyday spending. Trying to at least get more people interested in them! In fact, where I work, it would be nice to give out $2 bills in change; confusing, yes, but when someone gets a buffet and a drink for $7.80, then you can just give em a quarter, a nickel, and a two.

[Scott5114]

When I worked at Burger King, I actually would sell my drawer $10 or $20 worth of $2s to give out as change. In addition to being easier, it had the nice side effect of allowing the $1s to build up, since you would still get those people buying $8 worth of food in all ones but not have to give out $4 in ones as frequently. Customers usually wouldn't notice, and when they did they were usually happy, save for one or two people that I was able to mollify by giving them a no-fuss swap-out for $1s.

Unfortunately that side effect with the $1s still happens as a private citizen if you are not careful. My strategy is to cull the $1s from my wallet as I get them (keeping one single for purchases of an odd dollar amount, or for vending machines) and leave them at home. When I get $100 I strap it up (the tellers told me they appreciate this!) and deposit it in savings.

[english si]

when someone gets a buffet and a drink for $7.80, then you can just give em a quarter, a nickel, and a two.

You mean two dimes and a two, or $7.70...

[SP Cook]

I found the following story on $1 coins, it sounds like it should be true.

As we know, US coins used to be really made of silver, and were proportional to one another in size.  The Mint stopped making silver dollars in the 30s, not for any political or economic reasons, but simply because there were enough in circulation to cover the demand, since it was a large coin of (then) high value. 

Eventually, many of these ended up in Nevada.  In casinos, where they were recycled over and over in the slot machines as a coin on table games.  Then, when the price of silver rose above the face value of the coins, the US started issuing the "Johnson sandwich" coins we see today.  Casinos quicky made a tidy profit by removing the silver dollar coins, but had a problem because they had all of these slot machines that needed $1 coins.  So they made their own slugs.  Which entered general circulation in Nevada.

The Mint objected and decided that it had to issue a dollar coin to prevent this.  So the Ike was chosen.  Ike was among the most popular recent presidents, Nixon (by then president) was Ike's VP, and it evened up the ratio of political parties on coins.    The coins did fairly well, serving the casino industry and other such applications.  Until the failed SBA coin, the "Carter Quarter" came out.  Today, slot machines mostly operate with bill readers and pay off in tickets, rather than a coin drop, and casinos have issued $1 chips for the tables.  You still see some table games, Pai Gow for example, where the win pay is $4.25 on a $5 bet, that use quarters and 50 cent pieces in the chip tray.

[roadman]

[
As to $1 and $2 coins, we have to go there.  A $1 bill today is worth about what a dime was in the 50s.  If somebody had proposed a 10 cent note back then, he would have been laughed at.  But that is what we are doing, printing (at a much higher cost than coins) notes that have a very low purchasing power.  The lowest purchasing power of any note in a major country.  We need to do what Canada did.  Just reclaim all of the $1s as they come into banks and issue $1 and $2 coins.  Within a couple of years, it will be taken care of.

$1 and $2 coins only work if they are unique enough in dimension and/or weight so you can tell the denomination by feel.  That's why the previous dollar coins have been largely unsuccesful in making it into general use, because in a pocket full of change, you can't tell them from a quarter.

However, before we force conversion of $1 and $2 bills to coins, there's a higher priority for the mint - abolishing the penny.